Trump bullies Australian PM, warns Mexican President and puts Iran on notice

US President Donald Trump's muscular politics is shaking things across the world.

US President Donald Trump with US officials. (Source: Twitter/realDonaldTrump)

US President Donald Trump’s muscular politics is shaking things across the world. Not just banning Muslim refugees of several Islamic countries from entering the US territory, President Trump has warned his Mexican counterpart, reportedly had an acrimonious phone call with Australian Prime Minister and also put Iran on notice.

Washington Post reported that Trump had a heated exchange of words with Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee swap deal signed by then President Obama. In a controversial deal with Australia, President Obama had agreed to resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers held in offshore processing camps on Pacific islands in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. The deal contradict’s Trump’s recent order that suspended the U.S. refugee programme and restricted entry to the United States for travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

According to The Post, Trump said it was “the worst deal ever” and even accused Australia of trying to export the “next Boston bombers”. It further said that the call was scheduled to last an hour but Trump cut it after 25 minutes when Turnbull tried to talk on subjects like Syria. Turnbull, however, said the talk wit Trump was “frank and candid”. He didn’t give more details. In a Tweet, Trump said, “Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!”

Apart from Trunbull, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has faced the wrath of Trump. In a phone conversation, Trump warned his Mexican counterpart that he was ready to send U.S. troops to stop “bad hombres down there”‘ unless the Mexican military does more to control them. This was revealed in an excerpt of a transcript of the conversation, according to AP.

Trump had a phone conversation with Mexican President on Friday. However, the Mexican officials denied the tone of Trump’s conversation was “hostile” or “humiliating”. “It is absolutely false that the president of the United States threatened to send troops to Mexico,” Eduardo Sanchez, spokesman for Mexico’s presidential office, said in an interview with Radio Formula on Wednesday night. Trump and Nieto had a series of public spats over the former’s plan to construct a wall on the Mexican borders to stop illegal immigrants from entering the US.

One doesn’t know what is exactly playing on Trump’s mind but he has publicly claimed that all his decisions are in the interest of the US.

Apart from Australia and Mexico, Trump has also put Iran “on notice” for test-firing a ballistic missile and warned of consequences for its “malign actions”. “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said. The notice may trigger a new round of confrontation between US and Iran.

Flynn said recent Iranian actions, including the “provocative” ballistic missile launch on Sunday and an attack against a Saudi naval vessel conducted by Iran-supported Houthi militants, “underscore what should have been clear to the international community all along about Iran’s destabilising behaviour” across the region. The US has also said it will continue to insist on full implementation of the binding measures in the UN Resolution 2231 that prohibit all outside support to Iran’s ballistic missile programme,” he said.

In a Tweet on Thursday, Trump himself attacked Iran. “Iran is rapidly taking over more and more of Iraq even after the U.S. has squandered three trillion dollars there. Obvious long ago!”